WASHINGTON, July 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement on the official launch of HealthCare.gov, a new website to allow consumers and small business owners to compare health plans and find information about the Affordable Care Act. Today, the Department of Health and Human Services also announced the creation of the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, which makes insurance available to many adults denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition:
"The promise of the Affordable Care Act was clear: helping put Americans in charge of their health care, rather than insurance company bureaucrats. By launching HealthCare.gov, we are continuing to keep that promise: middle class families, workers, and small business owners will have access to the information they need to make informed choices about their health insurance.
"We also opened the doors of the health care system to many of those who have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, under the new temporary program launched today. This is a transitional program; under reform, by 2014, insurers will be banned from discriminating against adults with pre-existing conditions. These Americans join young adults who can now stay on their parents' plans until age 26, and seniors who now receive assistance for prescription drug bills. They join small business owners who now get tax credits to help pay for employee premiums, employers who will get assistance to cover benefits for early retirees, and all of the people who can no longer be dropped from their coverage when they get sick.
"Congressional Republicans want to repeal the new health reform law and take these essential protections and reforms away from the American people. They want to do what's in the best interest of insurance companies – and not what's best for patients and their families. Democrats will side with Main Street and keep fighting for our middle class."
SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House